


Today is Now (Happy Christmas)

by Anonymous



Category: SF9 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Christmas Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 02:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17034764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The season has Inseong in a reminiscing kind of mood ( AU )





	Today is Now (Happy Christmas)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oddpen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddpen/gifts).



> [ 1 ] I wasn't sure how I was going to write this, honestly. I took a few elements out of the original prompt, and went from there. It's not entirely what my giftee asked for, and I'm sorry for that, sob, but I hope there's something in this that's still enjoyable. Happy Holidays!

 

 

 

 

“Nice headshot.”

Inseong looks up and finds that Taeyang is giving him a strange look - an expression that goes quite well with the way he said the two words. He thinks that maybe he should feel judged because of the tone, but this is Youngbin, and in the last six months that Inseong has known him, he can safely say that he’s not that.

“Who is it?” Taeyang continues, casually taking the picture from Inseong’s hands so he can study it better. “Liam?” He reads the name scribbled on the back. “He looks familiar.”

Inseong can’t help the snort he lets out - it’s such a Taeyang thing not to realise where he knows the face from. “Pretty sure you’ve seen his face up in Times Square,” he points out with a chuckle, reaching over to snatch the photograph back.

“Oh!” Taeyang’s entire face lights up at the recognition; it’s all just clicked into place for him, Inseong can easily tell. “The guy advertising that— hm, what was it? That perfume, right? Ocean breeze? Ocean— ocean something?”

 _“Blue Ocean, Cologne for Men,”_ Inseong recites in a singsong tone reminiscent of how the narration in the actual advertisement goes. He’s seen it a few too many times over the last month, at least once a day on his commute to work.

“Right, that one,” Taeyang agrees enthusiastically. “You’re a fan, hyung? He looks a bit younger in that—” He gestures at the photograph that Inseong is now putting away, back inside a folder that Inseong hadn’t really meant for Taeyang to see anyway.

“He should,” Inseong answers, laughter naturally echoing around the room as it trickles out of his throat. “He was barely nineteen in that one - it was the first headshot he took when he first tried his luck here, a few years ago.”

“Wait, you know Blue Ocean guy personally?” Taeyang’s surprised expression amuses Inseong; it shouldn’t even be _that_ shocking, considering that Inseong works as a junior editor for a men’s magazine, which ensures connections to the modelling industry.

But maybe Taeyang has enough right to be surprised in this case, after all, it’s not as if Inseong knows Youngkyun through connections he made at the magazine.

“He used to sleep in the same bed that you do now, actually,” Inseong explains, his tone matter-of-fact, even though he expected the exact look of further shock that registers across Taeyang’s features.

  
  


Strong features and a soft gaze that’s looking straight into the camera - these are the first things one will notice from Youngkyun’s headshot. Youngkyun, because at the time it was taken, he had to go by Liam. His jaw is set tightly, and he’s all sharp edges - his Adam’s apple is so attractively well defined, especially from the angle in which he chose to take the picture. There is something in his eyes that reads as earnest, despite the intensity that is obviously trying to be projected. Inseong remembers thinking that this Youngkyun - whose stage name at the time was Hwiyoung - is not a _great_ model, but is one with potential.

His old high school buddy, Jaeyoon (one of the few he’d chosen to keep in contact with even after attending university, and eventually settling, in the U.S.), had been the one to ask him for the original favor. “Hey, Inseong,” even now he remembers the words. “This kid is determined to make it on his own out there in New York, but I don’t trust the agents recruiting him. Help a homeboy out?”

He’d really used that word - _homeboy_ \- and Inseong remembers because his own laughter at Jaeyoon’s affected English is vivid in his memory. He didn’t really have a heart of gold so he’d been skeptical - at that point, he had been living by himself in New York for six whole years but only out of school for two of them. In the end, though, Inseong is nothing if not a loyal friend, and he agreed to do his old friend a solid by letting a young stranger from home stay with him.

It wasn’t easy because he wasn’t used to having roommates anymore; not to mention Youngkyun was a little too quiet - even _grumpy_ at times - for his taste. But two years is a long time to be living with someone, and in that span of time, Inseong would like to think they grew to know each other pretty well.

By the time Youngkyun had managed to book his first photoshoot, Inseong was already his biggest supporter, and by the time Youngkyun had made it to the pages of a GQ magazine (granted, it was deep within the pages, and he was only really in the background of most of the photoshoot), Inseong had sort of, maybe, fallen a little bit in love with him.

  
  


“All I’m getting here is that you’ve been in the habit of taking in strays,” is what Taeyang tells him, jokingly, after he hears the story of how Inseong knows who he knows refers to as the Handsome Blue Ocean Guy.

Inseong is unable to blame him for the interpretation, so he simply laughs. Taeyang is a dancer who has been in New York for barely a year - which mostly means he waits tables for a living, while doing auditions whenever and wherever he can. This time it’s Youngbin - another old friend from high school who’d asked for his help in behalf of the younger male. They were in a dance crew back home, apparently, before Taeyang had decided to fly abroad and try his luck out in front of a bigger, more international audience.

Maybe it’s lucky that Inseong has really only kept in touch with two people from back home, because if he’s going to be unable to say no to any of them, then his life is bound to get really hard - but also, maybe he had easily agreed to do the favore more because Taeyang’s story had sounded awfully familiar, and less because he owed Youngbin any kinds of favors.

“I’ve taken two in,” Inseong points out. “Him,” he says, ticking off a finger, “and now you. I’d hardly call that a habit.”

“Who’s to say you won’t take in another one after I’m gone?” Taeyang points out.

“Are you saying you’re going to leave me too?” Inseong retorts. They end up staring at each other for a good number of seconds before they both start cracking up.

“I’m saying one day I’m going to find my own success, and I’m going to end up living in a hotel penthouse suite or something, and some other poor kid from back home

“Nah,” Inseong shakes his head. “I’m out of friends back home. No one else is going to send over some poor, hapless, artist type wanting to make it big out here.”

“Or maybe you’ll get back the old stray you actually want staying here with you,” Taeyang casually says.

“What are you saying?”

The younger male shrugs. “I don’t see you keeping a head shot of me tucked away in your desk, where you take it out every so often to stare at.”

Inseong almost chokes on his own spit because _what?_ There’s a few seconds of pregnant silence before he manages to think of a comeback, “You don’t know that because you don’t have a head shot.”

Taeyang laughs, and this time _he_ shakes his head. “If I did, are you going to keep it in a folder, only to take it out every so often to stare at it longingly?”

“No, but—” He wants to press that he does _not_ stare ‘longingly’ at Youngkyun’s photo, but he’s interrupted before he can go on.

“The no is the only part of that answer that’s important, hyung,” Taeyang tuts at him in a way that signals the end of the conversation.

  
  


“Merry Christmas, hyung!” Taeyang greets Inseong, afternoon of the 24th, a red and green paper bag held out towards him.

“Well, you’re early,” Inseong comments, taking the present for himself. “Christmas is a good ten hours away.”

“You know I won’t be around tonight,” Taeyang points out. “Or tomorrow morning, either.”

Right, Inseong’s almost forgotten - his roommate is attending a party that’s being thrown by one of his work friends. Taeyang’s been trying to get him to come along for days, but he’s spent the last week doing late hours at work, and now all he wants to do is sleep through the entirety of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s a holiday that doesn’t really hold much meaning to him, anyway.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me, hyung?” Taeyang tries to convince him once more. “It’ll be fun! You know, back home, Christmas never really felt like much unless you had a special someone and—” He shrugs. “There _was_ one Christmas when I tried spending it with my boyfriend at the time,” he pauses, only to laugh before continuing the story. “He’s still back home right now, closeted, and living under his parents’ roof so you can imagine how _that_ Christmas date must have gone at the time. I know I get homesick sometimes, but I don’t really miss that kind of life back home, you know?”

Inseong nods, relating all too well with Taeyang’s statement. There’s a reason why he’s been living by himself in a foreign country ever since he was eighteen, a reason as to why he hasn’t been back in Korea for at least four years now.

“So,” Taeyang is still going on, quite uncharacteristically really, as he’s usually more on the quiet side - but there’s a happy, excited smile on his face and Inseong isn’t about to ruin that by making him self-conscious about his rambling. “So this year, I want to spend Christmas in a genuinely fun and happy way, in a way that I see fit. Also—” He laughs, and ducks his head shyly, which makes Inseong smile because this is more the Taeyang that he knows, “—my friend might have promised to hook me up with some hot guy, so there’s that.”

Inseong can’t help the laughter that escapes him, but later on, once it hits half past six in the evening, he’s the one sending Taeyang off with a good luck pat on the shoulder, coupled with a knowing, teasing wink.

  
  


At exactly midnight, he remembers to open Taeyang’s gift - it turns out to be a white and gray knit scarf; he remembers seeing it at Bloomingdale’s once and he knows it costs more than it looks. He briefly wonders why Taeyang unnecessarily splurged on it, but he actively stops the thought and tries to focus on appreciating it instead. He’s just taken his phone out so he can send his roommate a thank you text message, when the sound of the doorbell suddenly rings and cuts through his consciousness.

“Wait up—” He calls, hurrying to the door even though he has no idea who it could be. Carollers, maybe? But surely, he thinks, not at this hour? Especially not considering the weather outside - just as news channels have been predicting, Christmas snow is falling outside.

“Hyung.”

Youngkyun is right there at the top step of his small brownstone apartment, his breathing visible as he exhales cold air. He has a knit beanie tucked down over his head, but his eyes are as piercing as Inseong remembers them, and right at that moment, they’re staring straight at him, pleading but uncertain.

“Hyung,” he repeats, and this time, Inseong can only step aside to let him in.

To his credit, Youngkyun looks shy and sheepish as he steps forward - this is the boy that Inseong remembers knowing. The boy that lived under the same roof as him for almost two years, not the man whose face was constantly on display for all New Yorkers to see, right at the crosswalk at Times Square.

“Merry Christmas,” he greets, and his voice is even lower than Inseong remembers. Rougher, even, but that just might be a side effect of the cold.

“Want anything to drink?” Inseong asks; he doesn’t know why - or _how_ he’s being so casual. It’s been exactly a year since he last saw Youngkyun, but it’s not as if he’s stopped thinking about the younger in the time since. “Coffee? Tea?”

Youngkyun shakes his head. “I just wanted to see you, hyung, and greet you a Merry Christmas…” He trails off, and now a strange awkwardness hangs in the air between them.

“So, you go by Liam now?” He asks, and for some reason they both laugh.

“That was the agency’s decision,” Youngkyun admits with a shrug. “Hyung—”

Their eyes meet again, but Inseong doesn’t say anything; he just gives the younger a small nod - a small gesture to let him know he should continue.

The truth is he doesn’t know how to feel now that Youngkyun is back in his apartment - this seems to be a running theme with everything that he feels about the young model though; he’s always confused and unsure.

“It just felt weird not spending Christmas with you,” Youngkyun finally admits with a small huff. He looks so shy and uncertain, and Inseong wonders at the back of his head what it says about him that he finds this so cute.

“I wouldn’t call last year spending Christmas together,” he says anyway, cringing as he recalls sending Youngkyun off on Christmas day. That had been a weird day - they hadn’t exactly fought, not like they used to during the first few months of Youngkyun’s stay with him. But the air was thick with tension, like there were things needing to be said, but weren’t being said.

“I’m here now, though,” Youngkyun points out, a smile smile gracing his lips as a tentative offering.

“You’re here now,” Inseong agrees. “And tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is tomorrow,” he mumbles in response, and Inseong is sure that this means he’s going to end up sending Youngkyun off the next day, much like he did the previous year. Maybe it’s the season though, or maybe it’s just _seeing_ Youngkyun again after so long, because in that moment he finds that he doesn’t care so much. _Tomorrow is tomorrow._

  
  


“Someone was here,” Taeyang declares, when he gets home, afternoon of Christmas. “You had a guest over last night, hyung?”

“Hmm?” Inseong shrugs in a non-committal manner, continuing to hum a festive holiday tune under his breath even though he has a book open in front of him.

This quite chipper mood has Taeyang throwing him a suspicious look, “Hyung?”

“Last night is last night,” he answers. “Today is today - Merry Christmas, Taeyang.”

“Merry…?” Taeyang laughs and shakes his head. “Merry Christmas, Hyung,” he greets back with a sigh. “I’m glad you seem to have had a happy one.”

  
  
  


_fin._


End file.
